Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's first task on returning to Baghdad after his summit with President Bush was to convene a press conference and ask Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political wing in the Iraqi parliament to end their boycott and return to the political process.

Al- Maliki needs them to preserve his fragile coalition of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and secularists. After a suitable period – days or weeks – al-Sadr's men will probably comply. They cannot continue to run the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and key government departments forever without government funding.

Editor's note: Click here to read the rest of Tom Aspell's post in our sister Web log, Blogging Baghdad.

An interesting note from the campaign trail: As I returned from Memphis yesterday, where I had covered the Corker/Ford race for NBC News, I had a layover in Charlotte, N.C. Democrat Jon Tester had just won the Montana Senate seat, and travelers in the airport were closely watching the television monitors in the terminal. Moments after boarding our flight to Washington, with the cabin door closed, I received an urgent news alert from NBC News. Donald Rumsfeld was resigning.

I mentioned the news to the flight attendant who was nearby. He immediately picked up the intercom and made the announcement to the rest of the passengers. Surprisingly, a good portion of then plane broke out into applause.

An interesting, if somewhat unscientific opinion poll... from the South.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - You've got to feel sorry for NASA's engineers and mission managers who are struggling to meet a very ambitious space shuttle launch schedule, yet once again find themselves bedeviled by setbacks.

Today, it's a problem with one of three fuel cell motors on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis that has scrubbed the launch set for 12:29 p.m. The fuel cells are critical, since they provide electrical power to the shuttle while it's in orbit. In addition, they produce drinkable water for the crew.

When engineers tested the system last night, they discovered a voltage spike from a motor winding or the power feed on the left side coolant loop. They're now trying to chase down the problem, hoping to isolate it in time to launch Atlantis and its cargo: a massive addition to the International Space Station.

The trouble is -- there isn't much time to do that. The launch window for the 116th space shuttle mission expires on Friday.  After that, the Russians are slated to launch a mission to deliver a new crew to the Space Station.

This is just the most recent setback for NASA and the Atlantis crew that has trained for more than four years for this mission. Mission managers first scrubbed the launch August 26 when lightning hit the launch pad. Then the threat of Tropical Storm Ernesto forced NASA to take Atlantis off the pad and roll it back to the protection of the Vehicle Assembly Building. 

That decision was supposed to have eliminated any chance of a September launch, because of the time it takes to prep a shuttle once it's back on the pad. But half-way through the roll-back, weather forecasters changed their predictions for Ernesto's direction and strength. NASA quickly did an about-face and rolled Atlantis back to the pad.  Now, this delay.

NASA could delay the launch attempt until October, but that's only a two-day window. And it has yet another mission slated for the end of the year. 

The time line is tight, because NASA must fly 15 or 16 missions by this time in 2010 in order to finish the International Space Station. The president has ordered, and Congress has agreed, to ground the shuttle fleet at that point, allowing NASA to  concentrate on its next mission: Returning to the moon.

While the shuttle is the most complex machine ever built -- with 2 million parts and 230 miles of wiring -- NASA administrator Michael Griffin has said the design is fatally flawed, since it allows for debris to fall off the External Fuel Tank and hit the orbiter. That's precisely what brought down Columbia in 2003, killing the crew of seven.

Yet, the shuttle is also the only vehicle that can transport the huge components to the International Space Station. And the U.S. has international agreements to use the shuttle to finish building the ISS.

So, Atlantis remains on launch pad 39-B with engineers scrambling to fix a problem with a 260-pound fuel cell.... with the mission, and the entire shuttle timeline on hold.

With press releases Thursday night from his campaign committee and his Senate press office touting his return, 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., flew back from Davos, Switzerland Friday to join the effort to block a Senate vote on President Bush's nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. 

But Kerry's behavior left Capitol Hill reporters wondering why he had gone to the trouble of flying back. He made a 30-minute speech on the Senate floor, winding up with the phrase, "This is a fight worth having."

But then he tried to evade reporters who were staking him out at the Senate floor exits and promptly left the Capitol building. Thanks to alert spotter work by one of our colleagues, several of us did catch up with him as he headed out the door of the Capitol. Kerry sounded detached, almost apologetic as we peppered him with questions.

"I'm supporting this effort along with a lot of other people... there are a lot of folks involved in it," he said.

A reporter asked, "Are you leading the effort?"

Kerry: "No, I'm just supporting the effort like others. I'm very supportive of it. Obviously, I support it."

As he reached his waiting vehicle in the Capitol driveway with his driver poised to whisk him away, another reporter asked Kerry. "How many votes you think you're going get out of it?"

"Can't tell you. Don't know. Thank you."

He flew back from Davos for this?

Centrist Democrats such as Sen. Kent Conrad, N.D., had already said they would not support a filibuster. "I can not justify a filibuster in this case, I don't think it is warranted," Conrad said Friday morning after meeting with Alito for an hour. "A filibuster is not going to be sustained."

As Chip Reid posted earlier today, it seems extremely unlikely Kerry and his allies could prevent the Republicans from getting 60 votes to end debate and move to a final vote on the nomination Tuesday morning.

Sixteen days after the explosion at the Sago mine outside of Buckhannon, W.V. and federal investigators have still not been able to gain access to the mine. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says the company is still pumping water out of the mine, and it could be another three to four days before investigators get inside. Once they do enter the mine, they will look for evidence into what caused the explosion that killed 12 miners and nearly killed Randal McCloy.

McCloy has been upgraded to serious condition at West Virginia University Hospital, where doctors say there are signs he is starting to come out of his coma. Today, Dr. Julian Bailes said to his knowledge, no one else has ever survived such a lengthy exposure to carbon monoxide. He may have avoided brain damage, but doctors won't be sure until he awakens more fully.

The question many people have is whether McCloy was able to find fresh air that allowed him to live longer than his co-workers. Family members have suggested the other miners may have given McCloy their oxygen, since he was the youngest of them all with two small children. We may not know the truth unless McCloy himself fully awakens and tells us what the miners went through more than two miles into the Sago mine. 

Also today, the head of MSHA announced he is appointing an MSHA veteran to head an internal investigation into how MSHA performed during and after the disaster. George Fesak will look at how quickly the feds responded to the mine disaster.

The president and CEO of International Coal Group, Ben Hatfield, told NBC News last week that the first calls to MSHA resulted in voicemails and home phones went unanswered. The accident happened at 6:31 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 2, a federal holiday. Rescue teams did not enter the mine until 11 hours later -  though federal, state, and company officials have all said the teams could not rush to enter the mine given the poisonous levels of gasses.

In his interrogation, Sen. Joseph Biden raised the views of former Bush Justice Department official John Yoo, who now teaches law at Berkeley.

Under Yoo's theory, at least as depicted by Biden, "the President could invade Syria tomorrow or invade Iran tomorrow without any approval by Congress…. Our only recourse would be to cut off appropriations."

But Biden argued that Congress "would have to cut off appropriations for the whole military" so cutting off funds for a particular military operation is "a totally useless tool."

But, one wondered, what about the McGovern-Hatfield amendment or the Cooper-Church amendment in which Congress cut off funding for the war in Indochina in the 1970s?

But Alito carefully reminded Biden that he is not Yoo.

"You seem to be agreeing with Prof. Yoo," Biden told Alito.

"I hope I'm not giving you that impression," Alito replied. "I have not read Prof. Yoo's book."

In his final blast at Alito this morning, Sen. Kennedy told Alito that the hearings had raised "even more questions about Judge Alito's commitment to fairness and equality for all."

Kennedy chided Alito for his 2000 speech to the Federalist Society about the theory of the unitary executive (which deals not with war powers but with administrative agencies such as the SEC)

Kennedy accused Alito of having "run away from this very radical and bizarre theory."

On the Princeton alumni issue, Kennedy said, "I was pleased that Judge Alito distanced himself from CAP. But we still do not have a clear answer as to why Judge Alito joined this repulsive group in the first place."

Earlier Kennedy said, "Thanks to your family for support they've given" – I didn't get a chance to glance at Mrs. Alito at that very point.

Kennedy did not comment at all on the search of the CAP records which turned up nothing that would document Alito's involvement in the group.

Chairman Specter begins by saying said the committee staff has reviewed the Conservative Alumni of Princeton (CAP) files among the William Rusher papers at the Library of Congress.

Specter reads the results of the staff review:

Alito's name never appeared in any documents.

His name is never mentioned in letters to or from CAP leaders.

There are cancelled checks made out to CAP, but none from Alito.

None of contributor lists contains Alito's name.

Dozens of articles from the CAP's Prospect magazine are in the Rusher papers, but Alito's name is nowhere to be found in any of them.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., looks on silently as Specter read the result of the search. It was Kennedy who implied yesterday that Alito or his handlers might be hiding evidence of his involvement with CAP.

Will Mrs. Alito's tearful exit create a backlash against Democratic foes of Samuel Alito?

Will the use of Alito's membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP) help rather than hurt the nominee?

When Sen. Ted Kennedy read into the record yesterday a few inflammatory, anti-gay, and bigoted statements from articles published in the CAP magazine, he gave Alito the chance to disavow those statements, but he also implied that Alito should have known that CAP published a magazine which printed such incendiary things.

"I do not recall knowing any of these things about the organization," Alito told Kennedy. "And many of the things that you've mentioned are things that I have always stood against."

During a 15-minute break later in the day, after Mrs. Alito had left in tears, Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican, gave reporters his assessment of the episode, "People are human; they can only take so much."

He said the emotional price a nominee's family pays if he is accused of associating with bigots is too high.

But Alito's adversaries suggest that he and his handlers have something to hide and that his testimony that he did not recall anything about CAP -- other than once having been a member -- may have been less than the whole truth.

That's why Kennedy demanded a search of CAP documents in the papers of conservative publisher and CAP founder William Rusher at the Library of Congress. (Read a Q&A with Rusher published yesterday on the National Review's web site)

"I don't understand why those that are in charge of the nominee are attempting to hide," Kennedy said Wednesday. "What is there in that information that they are so concerned about?"

We'll find out today if that search of the Rusher papers turned up a "smoking gun" proving that Alito was more involved in CAP than he said he was.

Alito had listed CAP on his 1985 job application to become deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan Justice Department. But his foes argue that CAP was such a reprehensible group that Alito naturally would want to minimize his involvement with it now.

"Here he is disavowing all the positions of this group – because some of them are pretty outrageous – yet at the time someone thought it was a pretty good idea to include it on his application to improve his credentials," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in a post-hearing briefing with reporters last night. "Why was this considered to be a good organization to put on your résumé for the Reagan administration? That's the point people don't want to face."

Alito says the only reason he can recall for having been a CAP member was his concern that ROTC was not welcomed on the Princeton campus. (Read a November article in DailyPrincetonian.com regarding Alito's relationship with the group Concerned Alumni of Princeton.)

A few minutes ago Mrs. Alito started weeping and got up and left the hearing room.

Her exit came during an emotional speech by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. in which he expressed regret to Alito that his reputation had been attacked for his membership in the conservative Princeton alumni group. Graham also asked Alito whether he was "closet bigot."

Alito replied, "I'm not any kind of bigot."

Graham said he believed Alito was not bigoted because of the way he and Mrs. Alito had raised their children.

Former National Review publisher William Rusher told the magazine's web site this afternoon, "I haven't seen those (CAP) files in 30 years, but I am sure there is nothing discreditable in them. Of course, Senator Kennedy can always hope."

Asked whether he knows Alito or recalls him being involved in CAP, Rusher said, "I have no recollection of Samuel Alito at all. He certainly was not very heavily involved in CAP, if at all."

Meanwhile, at mid-afternoon, Sen. Feinstein was trying to get Alito to commit himself on whether Roe v. Wade is settled law and whether he would vote to strike it down.

Alito repeated his previous formulation that Roe is "entitled to respect as a precedent of the court."

But he went on to say that no precedent could be deemed totally immune from reconsideration.

He quoted Chief Justice Rehnquist's phrase from a 1991 case called Payne v. Tennessee: "Stare decisis is not an inexorable command."

Alito explained what he might say to a hypothetical plaintiff: "It would be wrong for me to say, 'if you bring this before my court I'm not even going to listen to you….Go away, I've made up my mind.' That's the antithesis of what judges are supposed to do."

This openness to considering precedent would apply even in the case of Roe v. Wade, he implied.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist rushed to defend Samuel Alito in the CAP furor. Frist's statement was read aloud by Sen. Kyl at the hearing this afternoon.

"As a Princeton alumnus, I had concerns about CAP, but I have no concerns about Judge Alito's credibility, integrity and his commitment to protecting the equal rights of all Americans," Frist's statement said.

"This (CAP controversy) is another transparent attempt by the Democrats to wage an unfair smear campaign against an exceptionally qualified nominee."

And Republican staffers passed out to reporters a Nov. 26, 2005 New York Times article in which reporter David Kirkpatrick reviewed the Rusher/CAP records at the Library of congress.

"The records and others at the Mudd Library at Princeton give no indication that Judge Alito… was among the group's major donors. He was not an active leader of the group, and two of his classmates who were involved and Mr. Rusher said they did not remember his playing a role."

After being called by Specter's staff, Rusher has now agreed to allow committee staff to examine the records in the Library of Congress.

"I'm just a little puzzled about the issue being raised in this manner," Specter said, saying that Kennedy had never spoken to him personally about the request for Rusher documents prior to today's quarrel.